The Trashy and Bizarre Israeli-founded Berlin Music Video Awards

JNS, June 2, 2016

“Most bizarre” and “most trashy” are just some of the categories that made the 5th annual Berlin Music Video Awards (BMVAs)stand out. The weekend-long indie awards event was founded by Aviel Silook, an Israeli man from Kiryat Motzkin near Haifa, who sought to provide an open platform for celebrating video and performance acts—big and small—from across the globe.

“Bizarre” and “trashy” also describe some moments during the 2016 BMVA finale at the Columbia Theater on May 21, where Silook stood wearing a black spacesuit of sorts, and looking nervous and proud as he beheld his creation: beautifully and creatively dressed internationals networking around the art of making music videos. As some mingled outside in the party atmosphere, others stayed inside the theater to watch the off-the-wall, uber-creative, and sometimes hyper-sexual winning videos. Performance acts included a trashy nude performance by Stephen Paul Taylor, a bizarre musical performance by Lizzy and her drum-set dress, and the standard European electronic music. (Some of the song names were simply unfit to print in a Jewish newspaper.) 

So how did this Israeli immigrant to Germany dare to make such a loud cultural impact with what has become a leading international music video festival?

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